An Episomal Expression Vector for Screening Mutant Gene Libraries in Pichia Pastoris
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Plasmid 54 (2005) 80–85 www.elsevier.com/locate/yplas Short communication An episomal expression vector for screening mutant gene libraries in Pichia pastoris Charles C. Lee*, Tina G. Williams, Dominic W.S. Wong, George H. Robertson USDA-ARS-WRRC, 800 Buchanan St., Albany, CA 94710, USA Received 7 October 2004, revised 6 December 2004 Available online 20 January 2005 Communicated by Manuel Espinosa Abstract Screening mutant gene libraries for isolating improved enzyme variants is a powerful technique that benefits from effective and reliable biological expression systems. Pichia pastoris is a very useful organism to express proteins that are inactive in other hosts such as Escherichia coli and Saccharomyces cerevisiae. However, most P. pastoris expression plasmids are designed to integrate into the host chromosome and hence are not as amenable to high-throughput screen- ing projects. We have designed a P. pastoris expression vector, pBGP1, incorporating an autonomous replication sequence that allows the plasmid to exist as an episomal element. This vector contains the a-factor signal sequence to direct secretion of the mutant enzymes. Expression of the genes is driven by the constitutive GAP promoter, thus eliminating the need for timed or cell density-specific inductions. The pBGP1 plasmid was used to screen a xylanase gene library to isolate higher activity mutants. Published by Elsevier Inc. Keywords: Pichia pastoris; Episomal expression vector 1. Introduction formed with libraries of randomly mutated genes encoding the enzyme of interest (Cohen et al., There are many efforts directed at improving 2001). Clones that demonstrate an increased activ- enzymes involved in industrial processes in order ity relative to wild type can be isolated and further to increase cost and energy efficiency. One of the characterized. most promising methods to obtain better enzymes In order to screen a library for increased activ- is to screen microorganisms that have been trans- ity, it is critical to develop an effective expression system. It is desirable to have an expression vector * Corresponding author. Fax: +1 510 559 5940. that will direct secretion of the enzyme into the E-mail address: [email protected] growth media. This allows for the rapid assaying 0147-619X/$ - see front matter. Published by Elsevier Inc. doi:10.1016/j.plasmid.2004.12.001 Short communication / Plasmid 54 (2005) 80–85 81 of the enzyme activity without the need to release contrast, an episome could be isolated by a simple the protein by cell lysis or osmotic shock. Secreted plasmid preparation procedure. enzymes are often also easier to purify because of In this report, we describe the construction of a the relatively low levels of contaminating cellular new P. pastoris expression vector for screening proteins. mutant gene libraries. The plasmid contains both The most common host organisms used for bacterial and P. pastoris autonomous replication screening libraries are the bacterium Escherichia sequences that allow the vector to exist as an coli and the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. E. coli episome. A zeocin-resistance gene permits selection is popular because of its rapid growth and high of the plasmid in P. pastoris. We demonstrate the transformation efficiency. However, many pro- utility of the plasmid by screening a library contain- teins, especially those of eukaryotic origin, ex- ing mutant gene variants of a xylanase enzyme that pressed in E. coli are not active due to improper was not active in either E. coli or S. cerevisiae host. folding and/or lack of necessary post-translational modifications, such as glycosylation and signal 1.1. Strains, growth media, and enzymes sequence processing. S. cerevisiae does have the cellular machinery to modify enzymes post-transl- Escherichia coli bacterial strain JM109 ationally, so this yeast often succeeds where the (Promega, Madison, WI) was cultured in Luria– bacterium fails (Dean, 1999; Strahl-Bolsinger Bertani broth (1% tryptone, 0.5% yeast extract, et al., 1999). Unfortunately, some proteins ex- and 1% sodium chloride) supplemented with pressed in S. cerevisiae are hyperglycosylated, a ampicillin (50 lg/ml) when appropriate. The condition that can also result in loss of activity P. pastoris yeast strain GS115 (Invitrogen, Carls- (Eckart and Bussineau, 1996). bad, CA) was cultured on YPD (1% yeast extract, Another host that has been used successfully 2% peptone, and 2% glucose) supplemented with when both E. coli and S. cerevisiae have failed is zeocin (100 lg/ml) when appropriate. YPDS Pichia pastoris. This methylotrophic yeast has the (YPD containing 1 M sorbitol) was used when plat- capacity to grow to very high densities and can ing yeast that were transformed by electroporation. produce large amounts of protein (Cereghino For solid media, 1.5 and 2% agar were used for the and Cregg, 2000). Although P. pastoris also post- bacterial and yeast media, respectively. translationally modifies expressed enzymes, it does All media components were manufactured by not tend to hyperglycosylate proteins as is the case Becton–Dickinson (Sparks, MD), and all enzymes with S. cerevisiae (Bretthauer and Castellino, were purchased from New England Biolabs 1999). (Beverly, MA) unless otherwise noted. One difficulty with using P. pastoris as a host to screen mutant libraries is that most P. pastoris 1.2. pBGP1 plasmid construction expression vectors are designed to integrate into the host chromosome. These vectors do not con- The first PCR was conducted using PfuTurbo tain an autonomous replication sequence and thus polymerase (Stratagene, La Jolla, CA), pBlue- cannot exist as episomal (i.e., replicative) plasmids. script-KS plasmid template (Stratagene), and the Instead, the vectors must be linearized, trans- primers BS938 and BS2958 to isolate a 2021 bp formed into P. pastoris, and then integrated into fragment containing the ampicillin-resistance gene the yeast chromosome. This feature of such vec- and the bacterial ColE1 origin of DNA replica- tors makes screening of the libraries more labori- tion. The second PCR employed PfuTurbo ous. First, linearized DNA does not transform as polymerase, pGAPZaA vector template (Invitro- efficiently as circular DNA, so there are fewer gen), and the primers GAP1 and GAP2405 to clones from the library that are available for anal- produce a 2405 bp fragment containing the ysis. In addition, when the clone is inserted into glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase gene the host chromosome, it is much more difficult to (GAP) promoter, the a-factor secretion signal, extract for further analysis and manipulations. In and the zeocin-resistance gene. The products of 82 Short communication / Plasmid 54 (2005) 80–85 both PCRs were digested with SpeI and HindIII G1510A, T1606C, C2114G, add G at 897, add A restriction enzymes and ligated using T4 DNA li- at 1479, add C at 1517, add G at 2106, and remove gase to produce the pBS-GAP vector. extra G at 2099. A third PCR was conducted using PfuTurbo Primer sequences (restriction enzyme site used): polymerase, pYM8 plasmid template (Cregg et al., 1985), and the primers PARS1-FC and BS938: gcgaagcttacgtatgcactgcagctcactgcccgctttcc PARS1-RA to generate a 187 bp fragment con- agt (HindIII); taining the P. pastoris autonomous replication se- BS2958: gcgactagtgcacttttcggggaaatgtgcg (SpeI); quence (PARS1). The product of this PCR and GAP1: gcgactagtagatcttttttgtagaaatgtcttggtgtcctc pBS-GAP vector were digested with PstI and Hin- (SpeI); dIII restriction enzymes and ligated with T4 DNA GAP2405: gcgaagcttagcttgcaaattaaagccttcgagc ligase to produce the pBGP1 episomal expression (HindIII); vector. PARS1-FC: cgactgcagtcgagataagctgggggaacattcg The entire pBGP1 plasmid was sequenced and (PstI); compared to the predicted sequence. Multiple dis- PARS1-RA: ctgggatccaagcttcgacaattaatatttacttatt crepancies were detected in the region that origi- ttggtcaaccc (HindIII). nated from the pGAPZaA expression vector. To investigate this issue, the original pGAPZaA vec- tor provided by Invitrogen was sequenced. It was 1.3. Features of the pBGP1 expression vector discovered that the discrepancies were present in the pGAPZaA vector. Thus, there are errors in The pBGP1 plasmid was designed with several the pGAPZaA vector sequence data file available features to serve as an episomal expression plas- on the Invitrogen web site (www.invitrogen.com). mid (Fig. 1). The P. pastoris autonomous replicat- These errors do not occur in any protein-coding ing sequence (PARS1) permitted the maintenance sequences and do not impact the functionality of of the plasmid without chromosomal integration either the pGAPZaA or the pBGP1 expression in the yeast (Cregg et al., 1985). The bacterial vectors. Corrections that should be incorporated colE1 origin of DNA replication was also included into the pGAPZaA vector sequence file are as fol- to allow the maintenance of the plasmid in E. coli. lows: T1348C, A1493G, G1494A, A1509G, Fig. 1. pBGP1 expression vector. pGAP, GAP promoter; a-factor, secretion signal peptide; MCS, multiple cloning site derived from pGAPZaA plasmid; zeoR, zeocin-resistance gene; PARS1, P. pastoris autonomous replication sequence; colE1, bacterial replication sequence; and ampR, ampicillin-resistance gene. Short communication / Plasmid 54 (2005) 80–85 83 A signal sequence derived from the S. cerevisiae E. coli, we chose to include the ampicillin-resis- a-factor gene was included upstream of the multi- tance gene (ampR) because the ampicillin antibi- ple cloning site (MCS). Genes that are